Weezer Make Believe Geffen An open letter to Rivers Cuomo: Dear Mr. Cuomo, I know I don't know you personally but you seem like one hell of a jerk. No offense but I don't think I've ever heard of someone wasting their talent as much as you have. Maybe Kurt Cobain, but he was also married to Satan so it sort of gives him an excuse. What's yours? Besides your waste of talent there's also the issue of your constant self-doubt and insecurity. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD YOU CAN WRITE FANTASTIC POP SONGS! Stop acting like you can't, and stop looking for the pity of strangers! Mr. Cuomo we are all lost and confused, but not all of us announce it so blatantly and gratuitously to the world as you do, particular through the emotional shield provided by the internet. Get a spine, sir. Or at least pour that emotional insecurity into your songs like you used to, so that they attain have some semblance of substance once again. Pinkerton was fueled by your doubt and regret and it is the greatest thing you will ever accomplish in your entire fucking life. Stop denying it and stop putting it down in interviews, because it seems doubtful at this point that you'll ever surpass it. Please stop trying to recreate the Blue Album. It was good certainly, but it's not 1994 anymore and pretending that it is just makes you look like a fool. I'm not sure what to say about your admission that you were writing something like a hundred songs a month, empty and machine-like as though it were an office job or something ... It's a little disgusting, frankly. I believed in you. I believed in your songs. You are the reason that I was giddy the day the Green Album came out, only to bitterly sell it back a week later when I realized I hated it. So … thanks for that man. Also, your whole recent thing about finding happiness and spirituality in Buddhism and trying to care about your music again, that's great and all, but it feels like a lie when I hear Make Believe. It comes back to that whole wasted talent thing again. You said that you had decided to care about your music again. That's great, really. People were talking about Make Believe like it was the second-coming of Pinkerton though. I mean, I can honestly say that Make Believe is probably Weezer's third best album but that's only because your last two were as empty as an Ashlee Simpson record. On the other hand this is also Weezer's worst record ever. Let me explain. The Green Album and Maladroit were crap, honestly, but they were so empty and so of-a-piece that they were pretty easy to dismiss at a wave. There was nothing actively offensive about any of it, it just wasn't very good. The problem with Make Believe is that there are songs that are so outrageously awful they make me question why I ever liked your band in the first place. On the other hand it also has a handful of genuinely good tracks that are better than anything you've done since Pinkerton. Finding both of those on one record is terrifying and the contrast is enough to make me think maybe its just you. You can still write a good song when you want to, it just seems like you don't want to very often. Jerk. Let's start with the good ones I suppose. "This is Such a Pity" is an interesting experiment. It sounds unlike any other Weezer song, fully embracing the Cars influence that was lying just below the surface for years. Of course new wave revival is 'hot' right now and that detracts from the songs' appeal a little, but its melody is compelling and competent and better than most of your recent material. However, Rick Rubin's cliché '80s synth production on this song and several others is a little goofy, especially the cheesy faux hair-metal solo in the middle of the song. Meanwhile "Perfect Situation" is easily the best song you've written in years. Over bouncy piano-chords, the verse melody is light, airy, and carefree like nothing has been since the Blue Album. Not only is it carefree but it has that weightless flow to it that all your best material does, where everything sounds so perfect and natural that the song feels like it practically wrote itself in a single night. But of course it didn't, the songs you wrote in a night were all on Green. But "Perfect Situation" is well-thought out, its pleasant but still has an edge to it. It makes me feel like you care again, and it reminds me that you weren't always so weak. Then I hear the bad. Make Believe's first single "Beverly Hills" is the single most atrocious song I've heard since the turn of the century. You should be fucking ashamed of yourself. Riding one of the most tepid beats I've ever heard, the pathetic three-chord rip-off of "I Love Rock and Roll" finds you pseudo-rapping with the worst flow of anyone ... ever. Yes, worst than Debbie Harry on Blondie's "Rapture". Worse than Madonna. Don't ever rap again. To further insult your listeners, the hypocritical lyrics are all about how empty and meaningless celebrity, fame, and Hollywood are ... except celebrity and fame were exactly what Green and Maladroit were about. Top that off with a cheesy '70s voicebox guitar solo ripped straight from a vintage porno and I can honestly say it is Weezer's worst song. Why in the world did you choose this as your first single? In case you can't tell by the title, the lyrics to the love song "Freak Me Out" are pathetic at best and terrible at worst, "Man, you really freak me out / I'm so afraid of you / and when I lose my cool I don't know what to do." Building the song totally out of guitar harmonics is a nice touch and sounds awfully cool, but then it never actually goes anywhere, just treading in circles for a boring three-and-a-half minutes. Meanwhile, "Hold On" has a terrible and annoying chorus with more whining than a Get Up Kids song. Unfortunately "We Are All On Drugs" comes pretty close to "Beverly Hills", copping its verse melody from the school-yard "Diarrhea" song of all places. Likewise the macho chunky power-chords of the verse are just tired and boring, while the chorus is repetitive and thoughtless, just repeating the song's title again and again with some pretty terrible lyrics. "We are all on drugs / Give me some of that stuff." Stuff? Stuff?! Is that the best you've got, man? Come on, that's just pathetic. I know you can do better than this. Just hearing these songs sandwiched in with the good tracks I mentioned earlier--and the handful of pleasant but mediocre songs--is probably one of the worst things you could have done. If you had put out another meaningless clunker like Green or Maladroit I could have gone on ignoring you. But now that you've got my attention again you hand me what's both your best and your worst album in years. Talk about mixed signals. What am I supposed to make of that? You've got my hopes up again, only to let them down yet again. Stop doing this to me, god damn it! Stop toying with my fragile emotions. Maybe Make Believe points to much better things for your next album, but until then I think you're just a colossal fucking jerk. Love, -exadore 7/27/05

Weezer Maladroit Interscope

Why does Weezer keep doing this to me? I had hope, I really did. Sure, I told myself and everyone else I talked to that this album was going to suck horribly, but it was only so I wouldn't get my hopes up. Deep down I really wanted Weezer to prove me wrong, I wanted them to rock the fuck out of me like they did with Pinkerton or maybe infect my head with great passionate pop songs like on their first album. Hell, I was even down for something new from Weezer. But this … this just doesn't move me at all. It's an enormous improvement, light-years beyond the sterility of The Green Album, but it's still just going through the motions. Sure, it sounds like its rocking in a few places (something The Green Album never came close to doing), the music is a lot more complex and the lyrics aren't nearly as insipid as the last outing, but Rivers and the gang still look and sound absolutely bored to death. They try to sound like they're having fun by throwing in some 'whoa-oh-oh's and some crunchy chords, but ultimately it sounds and feels like Weezer became a passionless arena rock band from the late 70s. All the right moves, the catchy choruses, the dazzling stageshow and all the rocking parts in just the right place calculated to make fans happy, sell a lot of records and sell out a few shows. In the end it's devoid of anything really exciting or memorable. These songs really do feel like "Eye of the Tiger" or other songs of that nature; sure they technically sound pretty pleasant, but there's just something missing. Can anybody even name the band that sung "Eye of the Tiger?" No? Because at it's core it's really a rather boring, uninteresting song, worth a listen maybe every other year or when you see a Rocky movie or something. The band that wrote "Eye of the Tiger" is Survivor by the way, I had to look it up on CDNow.com. Weezer is headed down the same "decent-but-entirely-forgettable" path that Survivor trod, but why? Why Weezer? Why did you do this? You had something, you really did, some indefinable quality that made your brand of pop-rock a cut above almost everything else. So why the fuck are you throwing it away on empty songs like "American Gigolo" and pure jimmy-eat-world shittiness like "Dope Nose"? They even try to recreate the sound of "Island in the Sun" here with "Burndt Jamb" which sounds like nothing so much as bad lounge musicians writing songs about the tropics. You know, like the kind of songs in the jukeboxes of trashy bars that make you think of cheap margaritas and shirts covered in palm tree patterns. It sucks. So I guess it's time to finally bury my old hope, put it away in a box and forget all about it. Prove me wrong Weezer, prove me wrong. -exadore 7/16/02

Weezer Weezer Geffen

Back in high school I was the biggest Weezer fan you could imagine. Even though the band was broken up and were far, far from cool, I wore my Weezer shirt all the time. The punk rock kids I associated with occasionally would talk shit about it but I didn't care. I knew Weezer was Rock greatness. The Blue Album made me salivate and Pinkerton just made me wet. I waited years, long Weezerless years for a new album. So what the fuck is this bullshit?! This is nothing but a cheap rehash of their first album (which by the way was also self-titled). The new album even features artwork copied almost directly from the first. Weezer, don't you know that self imitation is bad? You only sound like a bad cover band of yourself. This is passionless, this is boring, this is prime radio material. Rivers, come on man! People have been waiting five fucking years for a new Weezer album and this is what they get, trash. People love Pinkerton because it was brimming with passion, emotion and power. The lyrics were insightful and self-analytical, and the whole thing just fucking rocked. But because it was a 'commercial failure' we get The Green Album; the polar opposite of Pinkerton. It is safe, sterile, empty and designed to move millions of units. A retarded 4 year old could write better lyrics than these gems, 'if you want it, you can have it, you just gotta learn to reach out there and grab it' and 'open up your heart and let the good stuff in'. Saves The Day writes better lyrics. Come on Rivers, you can do better than a retarded 4 year old. So Weezer puts out their shittiest album and suddenly everyone is a fan again. I don't understand. All the kids that made fun of me in high school were at their concert. Every song on here sounds alike with the exception of 'Island In The Sun'. I should have bought it as a single and saved myself 12 bucks. -exadore